A Princess and Her Chamberlain

Thompson, Jason

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_3

Jason Thompson⁴

Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

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Abstract

Caroline became so infuriated with her treatment in London in 1814 that she summoned her court and sailed for the European continent, embarking on a whirlwind tour from Hamburg in the north to Naples in southern Europe. For Gell it was a trying time as he had to attend the princess, standing behind her, on endless formal occasions, and he was already suffering severely from gout. But he fell in love with Italy and submitted his resignation to Caroline in Naples. She was hurt and angry but rewarded him with a pension that was his primary income for the next several years. Naples was to be Gell’s primary residence for the rest of his life.

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Notes

1.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 229.
2.
Fulford, The Trial of Queen Caroline, 30.
3.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 250.
4.
Norman Gash, Lord Liverpool: The Life and Political Career of Robert Banks Jenkinson Second Earl of Liverpool 1770–1828 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 110.
5.
Lewis Melville, An Injured Queen, Caroline of Brunswick, 2 vols. (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1912), 2: 432.
6.
For St. Leger , see #3, n.
7.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 105–6, 114.
8.
This manuscript journal is Osborn d. 293 in the James Marshall and Marie-Lousise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University where it is, however, incorrectly catalogued as being by Sir William Gell. Hereafter it is cited as Holland journal to distinguish it from Hollands’ published Recollections of Past Life.
9.
John Jacob Sicard is mentioned frequently in the correspondence. A native of Anspach, Sicard was a naturalized Englishman who entered Princess Caroline’s service as a cook around 1800 and rose to be her maître d’hotel. At the time of Queen Caroline’s trial, he was receiving a pension from her, as the Government pointed out, but he was not among the “List of the Queen’s Household at the time of her death.” See Appendix. Gell referred to him as “the Abbé Sicard.” Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 275.
10.
John Hieronymous was Caroline’s highly trusted servant. The “List of the Queen’s Household at the time of her death,” lists him as a steward paid £150 per year and credited with over seven years of service. See Appendix. Letter #14 refers to him as her “maître d’Hôtel.”
11.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 268.
12.
Lady Charlotte Lindsay’s journal of a tour of the Continent, 9 August–December 1814, Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts, MS Eng. Misc. d. 226, ff. 2–2v.
13.
Lady Charlotte Lindsay’s journal, Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts, MS Eng. Misc. d. 226, f. 2v.
14.
Windsor Castle, Royal Archives, RA Geo. Add. 21/122/2.
15.
Gell to Moses Hoper , Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 100–102.
16.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 274.
17.
See #9. Caroline’s continuing interest in Hesse shows in several references to him in her letters. At her death he was serving as her Equerry at £300 per year.
18.
#10.
19.
Gell to Moses Hoper , 12 September 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, pp. 107–8.
20.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 117.
21.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 2: 345.
22.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 121.
23.
Holland journal, 33.
24.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 280.
25.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 275.
26.
Holland journal, 49.
27.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 254.
28.
Arthur Aspinal, Letters of King George IV, 1812–1830, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), 2: 347. Lady Charlotte Bury confirmed that Ghislieri recommended Pergami , adding, “She [Caroline] thought him [Pergami], according to Madame de Boigne, like her hero Murat, and showered every kind of favour on him, making him, from her courier, her chamberlain.” Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 350, n. Caroline’s Swiss chambermain Louise Demont , who testified against Caroline at her trial, credited Gell with the introduction. Louise Demont, Voyages and Travels of Her Majesty, Caroline Queen of Great Britain (London: Jones & Co., 1821), 151–52. Gell gave his own account of it in his testimony before the House of Lords in Caroline’s trial in 1821. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, New Series, 3: 330–32, 343–45.
29.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 119.
30.
Holland journal, 61.
31.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 257.
32.
Charlotte A. Eaton, Rome in the Nineteenth Century [etc.], 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Constable, 1822), 1: 72.
33.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 259–60.
34.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 285–86.
35.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 127.
36.
Archibald Montgomery Maxwell , My Adventures, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1845), 1: 313–14.
37.
Lord Liverpool to Moses Hoper , 18 September 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 109.
38.
Gell to Moses Hoper, 28 September 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 111–12.
39.
Gell to Moses Hoper , 24 August 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 102.
40.
Moses Hoper to Gell, 27 September 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 110–11.
41.
Gell to Moses Hoper , 9 October 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 120–21.
42.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 131.
43.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 286.
44.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 287.
45.
Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV , 2: 121.
46.
Gell to Moses Hoper , 24 December 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 126–27.
47.
Hansard, New Series, 3: 47.
48.
Hansard, New Series, 3: 346.
49.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 272.
50.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 285.
51.
#1.
52.
E. Mortimer (Gell) to Moses Hoper , 4 February 1815, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 129–31.
53.
Aspinal, Letters of King George IV , 2: 274.
54.
John Jacob Sicard to Moses Hoper , 30 December 1814, Correspondence: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales: Solicitor’s Office Copy, Derbyshire County Record Office, D258/55/20, 206–7.
55.
Hansard, New Series, 3: 347.
56.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 304, n.
57.
#3.
58.
Arthur Aspinal, Letters of Princess Charlotte 1811–1817 (London: Home and Van Thal, 1949), 187.
59.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 351.
60.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 2: 361.
61.
Madden , The Literary Life of the Countess of Blessington, 2: 131.
62.
E.g., Gell to H. E. General Campbell, 12 February 1815, Derbyshire County Record Office, D3287/4/6/7.
63.
Melville, 2: 338–39. The letters informing Gell of his pension are #s 1 and 2.
64.
Princess Caroline also indicated in a letter to Miss Mary Berry that she intended that Gell should have his pension for life. Mary Berry and Agnes Berry , The Berry Papers: Being the Correspondence Hitherto Unpublished of Mary and Agnes Berry (1763–1852), Lewis Melville, ed. (London: John Lane, 1914), 346. Also see letter #2 and Appendix: “List of the Queen’s Household at the time of her death.” It may have been at this time that she also granted Craven a pension of £200.
65.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 372.
66.
#16.
67.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 137.
68.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 337.

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Copper Hill, VA, USA
Jason Thompson

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Thompson, J. (2019). A Princess and Her Chamberlain. In: Queen Caroline and Sir William Gell. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_3
Published: 26 September 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98007-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98008-9
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